Are vegetables really good for us?

I've read a lot of articles now saying that vegetables aren't meant to be eaten and that they have toxins to defend themselves from being eaten. These toxins might be able to help humans with cancer and viruses as they are so strong but they are bad for non cancerous cells too.

They also claim that there have never been experiments demonstrating that eating vegetables is better than not eating them. There have been experiments showing that people who eat vegetables are healthier but these experiments didn't exclude other factors and as people who eat more vegetables tend to live healthier lifestyles too its hard to draw the conclusion that vegetables are good.

Does anyone know of any clinical trial on pubmed or other which really shows that vegetables are good for us? That they actually help with our DNAs and aren't just toxic to our whole systems?

The problem with nutritional studies is that they are mostly mere observational studies and not thoughtfully designed. They often have no control group but just a SAD baseline group. Additionally, in the case of fruits & veggies... some bad SAD foods are typically removed when the veggies are added.

"Studies", such as these, will indicate improvement of health with the "addition" of veggies...but is it the addition of the veggies or the remove of the foods that veggies are replacing?

I'm sure broccoli & spinach are better for me than anything with HFCS, french fries, onion rings and nachos with canned cheese food but are the veggies really good for me? I'm not sure......

at http://diagnosisdiet.com/ Dr. Georgia Ede relates her personal nutritional journey. Another youngish MD to more closely examine nutrition from a basis of real scientific thought.

About 1/2 down her home page is a video presentation about veggies.

The problem is .... we gotta something. Somethings are bad, some things are definitely less bad but which items (& in what ratios or quantities) are "truly good" or "the best"? I don't know.

I'm pretty happy with my 18 month n=1 experiment. I'm down 30 pounds, my blood pressure is the lowest it's been in 25 years and I take no meds.

Is my diet optimized? No way.

Is it greatly improved? Yes, 99% devoid of processed food. Minimal dairy despite the fact I tolerate it very well. I only consume fermented dairy & nearly all pastured. I eat veggies but I'm not sure I need to.

as @samc points out, more research is needed... but well designed, well executed, well analyzed.

So this blog talks about veggies and your liver. He isn't anti veggie, he is just pointing out what happens to your body when you eat them, especially if not properly prepared. Believe it or not, further research is in order. Or just eat animals that eat veggies, trickle down so to speak.

Indeed the longest living people on the planet eat tofu daily. But then what is the difference between legumes (apparently healthy in smaller doses), and grains? Perhaps they are equally toxic, but grains are consumed in much greater amounts?

The answer is, we're evolutionarily adapted to eat certain plants, while other animals cannot. For example, feeding garlic or onions to cats or dogs can kill them, yet, we do just fine with them. Ditto chocolate.

We can detox most of the toxins that the plants which we've evolved with produce, but not all, and not to 100%. Some of these, polyphenols, are beneficial because they induce a hormesis response, which is beneficial. In other words, that which doesn't kill us, makes us healthier.

Others, we can tolerate only if they're cooked, soaked, fermented and/or sprouted. For example, eating undercooked kidney beans can cause very serious harm. However, these preparation methods don't get rid of all the toxins, which is why beans and other legumes are not considered paleo.